Work Experience

Powerpoint slide show presentation http://www.slideshare.net/paullivo44/work-experience-14986852

Have contacted several photographers about work experience.

Alan Benson, food photographer (Sydney) - who was happy for me to visit his studio again, having been there several months back with Julian and some third year students. Unfortunately since my initial contact something of a personal nature has come up prohibiting Alan from accommodating student work experience for a couple of months. He is still willing to have students visit once things return to normal for him.

Mark Amos, self-employed commercial product photographer (Sydney) - does catalogue product shots.

Sara Fife, portrait, wedding and commercial photographer (Goulburn) -

Andy Stavert, photographer (Sydney) - working for Anthem Worldwide a Division of Schawk, Inc a global provider of integrated brand development and brand deployment services.

Trevor Connell, photographer & owner - EventPix Commercial and Event Photography Services Australia wide (Canberra)

With the exception of Alan Benson, CIT graduate and supporter of student work experience, the photographers listed do not take on work experience students. It is only because I am friends with all of them that they agreed to let me shadow and work with them.

Mark Amos (3 & 5 September)

Mark sole client is "the world's largest direct seller of beauty and related products. with a global annual turnover of over $11 billion." He receives a catalogue mock up from the Art Director and the company sends him the product via courier. His wife assists by running around town purchasing all the props needed for various shoots. Mark occasionally has a second shooter working in the studio with him. Some shoots require models, primarily hand models. 

When shooting images are sent via ftp to the clients server for the Art Director to approve and once approved the setup is taken down an another shoot started. The approval and changes required by the Art Director is the most time consuming portion of the process. On average six products are shot each day depending on the variety of setups required. Some products are deep etched while others require specific coloured or effect backgrounds and other set ups require props.

Mark has a purpose built studio at his home. The main portion of the studio is about 8m x 8m with 4.5m high ceiling. He has rail and scissor system on the ceiling for 1.5M Hensel dual head soft box. There are several windows in the studio but they have metal roller shades covering them and only studio lighting is used for his shooting.

One of the 9 Hensel power packs

Rail lighting with 1.5m softbox with  2 flah heads

Gotta have music while you work

Product set up for shoot with black perspex and gold reflection from gold card

View from computer, milk crates to hold table top, Sinar camera on stand. translucent scrims diffusing light on  right and left, Intruso pen & tablet

Screen view of product

Screen view of product

View from the Sinar

Product - Sushi machine with rolled sushi behind.

What is it?

Still guessing.

Here's a hint!

A potted flower shaped fruit knife with six fruit pics. A challenge on how to present an item like this so that people will want to purchase it. 

Cameras: Canon 1D Mark II; Canon 5d Mark II; Sinar with Leaf 4:3 digital back (60mp). He has 3 Leaf backs because he sends them to Switzerland for cleaning at $1800, that way he always has two in the studio.

Equipment and Software:
Hensel Flash 320 C-B power packs (9)
Hensel 1.5m dual head soft box
Various soft boxes and reflectors
Mac Pro Computers
Enzo Monitor
Photoshop CS5
Photoshop 2
Sinar Capture Shop
Intruso 2
Indesign
Lots of milk crates used for base of his table top to allow varying heights depending on the angle of shooting required.
CD Player and lots of music CDs

The majority of Mark's photographs are straight out of camera with minor adjustments. He uses the patch tool rather than content aware tool for cleaning up spots or dust on photo. Sometimes uses multiple images and masking for lighting and adding bokeh. Mark said he preferred to add lights to his work rather than use reflectors.

Since Mark is use to working alone I had little hands on work to do other than moving a few lights, milk crates and discussing his techniques and critiquing the results as they appeared on the monitor.

Andy Stavert (5 Sep)

Andy works for Anthem Worldwide photographing primarily for packaging. The studio is located on the 17th floor of an office complex in North Sydney and although the studio had plenty of windows with lovely views of the city the windows were tinted green so no natural light. They use a large rectangular 1/2 stop translucent paper scrim to simulate natural light. The studio is approx 12m x9m fitted with a kitchen with a second kitchen being installed. The studio will be divided in half with a black railed curtain allowing two photographers and assistants to work and cook in the space.

View from studio on 17th floor

The day I visited Andy and his assistant/stylist Gemma were doing a food shot for the packaging of a new Continental Brand pasta. Continental is owned by an international company based in the UK and their products carry different brand names throughout the world however their packaging for products has the same style with different colours and product photo to include local accompaniment. In order to assure standardisation the company produces a Brand Guidelines Book, the one I saw was about 80 pages, detailing things like - lighting style, height and angle of camera to product, etc.

Green windows, scrim for room lighting, mirrors  and shot of Continental Pasta 

View of captured images on screen

Use of mirrors and reflectors showing camera position. Ikea adjustable saw horses used to hold table top.

In addition to the Continental Pasta shoot they did a test concept photo shoot of a new Pork Belly product for a major grocery chain. The product was partially pre-cooked so Gemma had to final cook it as the shopper would do and then sliced and then plated it with no accompaniment. The dish and the meat was shot and then given to the Art/Design department who were to do a package/advertising layout for the client. Due to the nature of the product, Pork Belly, each pre-packaged piece although the weight the same it varied in overall size due to the inconsistency of the belly thickness. The photographer and stylist advised the Art/Design people so that 'suggested serving' could be included in the labelling because the product could not be guaranteed to be the same as shown on the label.

Pork Belly fully cooked and on plate

Pork Belly Package different thickness from item cooked

At the end of the day Andy had to shoot a new product package, Sensodyne, which proved a bit difficulty for two reasons. The package itself had an odd shape. It was the normal long rectangular shape one associates with a tube of toothpaste but it was as if it was a block of wood that had the middle of one edge scraped out giving part of it a fifth surface, see photo. The second problem was that part of the label contained hologram which proved difficult to light and photograph. As it was the end of the day Andy decided to leave it for the next morning.

Unusual shaped box with hologram

Unusual box from different angle

Located on the same floor as the studio is the Art/Design department which does all photo manipulation, coordination and proof approval with clients.

Cameras" Canon 1DS various lens most frequently used Canon 45mm T/S.

Equipment and software:
Mac Pro Computer
Mac Monitors
Intruso 3 Tablet
Pro Photo Strobes DI 500W and DI 1000W
Capture One software
Reflectors
Scrim
mirrors
Music on computer using Spotify

While waiting for the Art Director to coordinate with the client Andy and Gemma decided to take the time to do an inventory the props in the studio. The purpose of the inventory was twofold one for accounting section for depreciation and accountability and a copy for the Art/Design Department so they could identify the types of plates, bowls, glasses, etc. on hand when designing advertisement. I was able to assist in this process. Gemma took everything out of the cupboards and put like items together giving me a description and value of each item which I entered into an Excel spreadsheet, while Andy photographed the items and labeled the photos to correspond with the Excel listing.

Trevor Connell (11 & 18 Sep)

Trevor is the owner of EventPix Commercial and Event Photography Services Australiawide.
Attended the Australian Steel Industry Conference at the Hayatt as an observer with Trevor taking photos of the various speakers including Shadow Treasurer, The Hon. Joe Hockey. The brief was to document the speakers and the trade booths on the final morning of the conference.

In the afternoon we went to the National Convention Centre where a medical trade show was happening and Trevor had been contracted to photograph one of the purpose built booths. It was a relatively simple assignment to shoot the booth and with the staff.

On the evening of 18 Sep I accompanied Trevor to the Great Hall at Parliament House where he was commissioned to photograph a delegation of about 250 international students in traditional dress. We set up three mono blocs with soft boxes in the gallery above where the students were 'herded' into a semi-circle facing up at the gallery. Following the large group shot the mono blocs were moved to one corner  of the main floor of the Great Hall and group shots were taken of each country delegation.

At the Australian Steel Industry Conference I was strictly an observer. For the photographs at the Convention Centre I helped clear extraneous material from the display and did crowd control to stop people from walking in front of the display during the shoot. Duties for the shoot at the Great Hall was to carry mono blocs from the car, through security and set them up in the gallery for the large group shot and them move them to the lower level for the country delegation shots.

Camera & Equipment:
Canon 5D Mark II
Canon 580 EX flash
Set of 3 Mono blocs with soft boxes

Sara Fife

Had arranged to visit Sara on one of her portrait shoots however having done 3 sets of work experience and in discussion with my instructor decided it was not necessary to do any further work experience.